Tourism and flights

What has happened since 2020

• 18 October 2020: Bahrain and Israel signed a civil aviation MoU and a visa exemption for diplomatic passports, followed by a tourism agreement on 2 December 2020 (Embassy of Israel in Bahrain).
• 25 July 2021: Israeli airlines began direct flights to Morocco (Reuters, 25 Jul 2021).
• 30 September 2021: Gulf Air flew its first commercial service from Bahrain to Tel Aviv, starting at two flights a week (Reuters, 9 Sep 2021).
• February 2022: Royal Air Maroc announced a new Casablanca–Tel Aviv route (Reuters, 21 Feb 2022).
• The Negev Forum, launched in 2022, set up a Tourism working group (US State Department archive: Negev Forum Steering Committee).

Verified figures

Cooperation by country pair

UAE–Israel

Record air links in 2025 (UAE MOFA).

Bahrain–Israel

Aviation MoU (2020) and Gulf Air route (2021) (Embassy; Reuters, 9 Sep 2021).

Morocco–Israel

Direct flights from 2021 (Reuters).

Sudan

n/a. No verified source located yet.

What we still need to measure

• Visitor arrivals by nationality from official tourism statistics, for every pair
• Current Bahrain and Morocco flight frequencies
• Spending by visitors

Further reading

• UAE MOFA: Israel–UAE relationship
• Embassy of Israel in Bahrain
• US State Department archive: Negev Forum Steering Committee

Checked against the linked sources on 27 October 2026. Figures show change over time, not cause.